Sunday

You may recall the various stylish high-heeled shoes that the flamboyant 5-foot-3-inch Prince was known for wearing while jumping, spinning and doing splits on stage.

Rockford native Jeff Munson knew them — and/or ones like them — well, but in a different setting.

Munson's graphics design office was right under Prince's apartment/office in the superstar musician's 65,000-square-foot Paisley Park private estate and music complex in Chanhassen, Minnesota, which will open for public tours Oct. 6, less than six months after Prince's accidental overdose death at 57.

"He had the heels reinforced with metal," Munson told me Thursday in his home-based graphics design studio in Rockford. Munson said he'd often hear clinking as Prince was "running up and down the stairs" when he worked for the singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and record producer from 1988 to 1994.

"The early days were completely surreal," Munson, 51, said of his years working in the estate/studio of the artist whose styles included funk, rock, R&B, pop and soul. Prince sold more than 100 million records and was ranked No. 27 on the "Rolling Stone" list of 100 Greatest Artists.

"You would never see him show up in jeans and a T-shirt," Munson said of Prince. "He had custom clothes. A custom hairdo. I couldn't even keep my part straight," Munson said.

"Normally, conversations would be centered on business, but they could go on for hours — I'd be sitting on the floor — and he'd drift in and out of trying to get people to unite, to rise above. He was a big-picture guy who was not really interested in the weather or what you had for lunch."

Munson worked on set preparation for the 1990 film "Graffiti Bridge" at Paisley Park. The rock musical drama was written and directed by and starred Prince in his final film role, a sequel to the 1984 film, "Purple Rain," for which Prince won an Academy Award.

George Clinton, a foremost innovator of funk music, had a role in "Graffiti Bridge." Munson said there's a "lot of hurry-up-and-wait in movies," so "here I am, shooting the breeze with George Clinton waiting for the next scene." Musicians such as R.E.M., Barry Manilow and Jeff Beck would come and go, rehearsing in Prince's studio on the property. Shelley Long, star of the TV show "Cheers," popped in for a tour one day. "She was real sweet."

"It was a trip," Munson said of his time at Paisley Park, where early on he drew a sandwich-sized, stylized version of the Batman symbol that was cut out of a chunk of metal. The symbol was projected onto Paisley Park for a few months around the release time of the 1989 "Batman" movie featuring the soundtrack by Prince.

He also drew designs of Japanese symbols for some of Prince's clothing items.

Munson said Prince was "extremely charismatic. No matter who was around, he commanded attention. Top executives would shut up, and say, 'Jeepers. He looks just like he does on TV.'"

"How in the world did I get here?," Munson asked himself incredulously at the time.

Let me tell you how.

The journey

Dave Friedlander, who has been friends with Munson since grade school, with both graduating from Guilford High School in 1983, explained the journey to me on the phone.

He said the two of them would drive around Rockford listening to "Purple Rain," one of Prince's best-known tunes. And they'd talk about one day "him doing art and me doing recording" for Prince, Friedlander said.

Munson attended Northern Illinois University for a year and worked for his father, Dean Munson, at Munson Illustration & Design in Rockford. Friedlander graduated from the Berklee College of Music in Boston with a focus on musical engineering.

The music scene was happening in Minneapolis, where Prince was born. They were in their early 20s and wanted to get out of town.

Within a few months, Friedlander got a job at Paisley Park as a recording engineer, where he worked for nine years. "I engineered (Prince's) studio projects," Friedlander said.

"I'd take (Friedlander) his lunch," Munson told me.

Friedlander said Munson did more than that initially, including designing a "cool-looking song order" chart for Prince. Friedlander said Prince liked to have a have a "list on a particular project on a big piece of paper so he could see the order."

Prince liked Munson's designs and Friedlander said Prince asked Munson to work on the "Graffiti Bridge" movie, where he "did the typography and the graphic design where Prince would be writing on the wall."

That led to Munson starting Prince's in-house graphics design department, to do work that had been contracted out to other agencies, Friedlander said.

Friedlander, who lives in Portland, having moved there to do recording engineering work after leaving Paisley Park, said working for Prince was "all pretty cool, but hard work."

Munson said he remembered Friedlander working round-the-clock sometimes. "I'd see him three days later wearing the same clothes." Munson said he himself often worked 12-hour days, six days a week.

Friedlander said the best part of his days at Paisley Park was "me and my best friend actually had a dream, and we weren't scared to go for that dream, regardless of how far out it seemed at the time. It was pretty cool that I got to live that whole thing with my best friend."

Munson said Prince in the early years when Munson was at Paisley Park was "reclusive." Even so, he was "brilliant, the Leonardo da Vinci of entertainment," Munson said. He said Prince "rewrote the rules, shifting how people go about selling music, always standing up for the creative people in the process, rather than the suits."

Other achievements

Among his achievements, Munson counts designing the cover and back of Prince's, "Come" album. Prince wanted the feel of the images to be "like a funeral," Munson said. It was around the same time that Prince was going by the use of the combined male and female signs as a unified symbol to represent himself instead of his name. "He wanted to put his name to bed," Munson said.

Prince used the symbol, known as "Love Symbol," as a stage name from 1993 to 2000. He was referred to as "The Artist Formerly Known As Prince."

Munson also created 15 of the 17 versions of the CD covers for Prince's "Most Beautiful Girl in the World." He said Prince was trying to "get away from Warner Bros.," which was the record label that produced his works. "They granted him the OK to do one album," Munson said, and Prince released those many versions independently. "There was a special party with tons of celebrities," Munson said.

Munson also did the layout for Prince's book, "The Sacrifice of Victor." It captures photos Terry Gydesen took when she toured with Prince in the summer of 1993. Munson laid out the book design and helped Gydesen, a photographer, and Prince edit photos.

He also helped with the publication of another of Prince's four books: "Neo Manifesto: Audentes Fortuna Juvat" (1994), a collection of Prince's lyrics and poetry. "He wanted to do funky things with the photos. He said to 'Make it colorful and fun; make it interesting.'"

And he created ads and labels. Among Munson's favorite Prince songs: "Lady Cab Driver," "Northside," "Erotic City" and "Resolution."

When Munson was at Paisley Park, he said Prince ate healthy meals and ran circles around bodyguards when playing basketball. He never saw or even heard of Prince taking drugs or pain medication.

Munson returned to Rockford in 1999 and worked for various graphics design businesses. This year, he's been on his own under the Jeff Munson Creative Services name at jcmunson.com, creating product and other designs for manufacturers and other businesses.

There's been talk, Munson said, of a documentary being made about former employees of Paisley Park. Munson said he'd be very interested in reminiscing.

One recollection he'd likely share: "I was working the front desk. I can see (Prince) in the car," a bright blue custom-painted BMW. "'You got $5 for a chocolate shake?'," Prince asked him when Munson went out to greet him. "I give him a $5 bill, and off he goes to McDonald's.

"In high school, if someone told me (Prince) would owe me five bucks for a chocolate shake ..."

Georgette Braun: 815-987-1331; gbraun@rrstar.com; @GeorgetteBraun

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